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Ulvogin
The Ulvogin are a people who live beyond the Wall within the dangerous mountain passes overlooking the Haunted Forest. A kingdom of sorcerers, the Ulvogin were banished beyond the wall for practicing black magic to fight off the White Walkers during the Long Night. Thousands of years later, at the present age, the Ulvogin are an arcanely skilled people and seek to exact a terrible retribution for their exile. History Early Years The people who would come to be the Ulvogin came to Westeros along with the First Men during ca.-12,000 and participated in the war against the Children of the Forest. The Ulvogin first gained an interest in magic during this time, particularly after witnessing the Children shatter the land-bridge that the men had come across. When the Pact was signed and peace reigned, the Ulvogin sought the tutelage of the Children in the mystic arts. The Children granted their request and for two thousand years, they educated the Ulvogin in ancient arcane lore. The Long Night The peace that both the men and the Children enjoyed eventually came to an end with coming of a long winter and the invasion of the Others. The Children and the First Men rose to fight them, but were steadily driven back. The Ulvogin unleashed their arcane powers upon the otherworldly creatures and were able to battle them admirably, but the Others proved to be a stubborn foe and they soon found themselves cut off from the rest of the men. Unable to escape, and with the Others steadily closing in around them, the Ulvogin became desperate. In their desperation, they turned to the dark arts, unholy magicks that the Children had declared forbidden. Through the use of these tabooed arts, the Ulvogin managed to halt the Others and slowly began to push them back. Banishment Finally, the Others were driven back by the forces of the Children and Men under the leadership of Azor Ahai, the now mythical hero of Westerosi lore. Once the last of the Others had been purged from the lands, the great fortification that would become the Wall began to take shape. The Ulvogin, having finally rejoined with their kin, offered their services in the construction of the wall. However, word of their use of dark magic had reached the Children and Men, and the Ulvogin were subsequently declared abominations, perversions of man who were no better than the Others. The Ulvogin were commanded to leave the lands of Westeross and to go to the far reaches of the North that lay beyond the Wall. Too few to resist this order, the Ulvogin had no choice but to accept their banishment. For a long time, the Ulvogin knew only misery. While winter may end for the rest of Westeros, the merciless cold of the North never abated for the Ulvogin; each day was a struggle to survive, for it was not only the elements the Ulvogin had to contend with. The Others harassed them regularly, killing and raising the dead in their wake, and wildling raiders were a constant plague. Food was scarce, and cannibalism became distressingly common. Only the Ulvogin's mastery of the arcane allowed them to continue to live. These hardships caused the Ulvogin to develop a corrosive hatred for the people of Westeros. The Dread Prophet Roughly five hundred years into their exile, a single Ulvogin, who is remembered only as the Dread Prophet, announced that he had recieved visions from a being that called itself C'rathul, more commonly known throughout the rest of the world as the Great Other, the eternal nemesis of R'hllor, the Lord of Light. He claimed that C'rathul had noticed the Ulvogin and was impressed by their tenacity and mastery of the arcane. As such, the god had decided to cast his favor upon them; the Ulvogin would be his chosen people and where once they suffered, they would come to reign supreme over all Westeros. The Ulvogin, having weathered the harshness of the endless cold of the North, found this idea very appealing. Under the direction of the Dread Prophet, they retreated within the Haunted Forest and up the treacherous mountains that overlooked them. It was here that they began to form the foundation of their own personal kingdom. Using their sorcerous powers, the Ulvogin molded stone and metal ore, shaping them into walls and buildings. A hundred years later, the first city of the Ulvogin had been built. They named it Magul Ghoma, the Dread City, and it would eventually become their capital. Arcane Knowledge While magic has atrophied throughout much of the world and is mostly practiced by simple performers and dabblers with delusions of granduer, the Ulvogin remain the forerunners of occult practices, delving beyond what any others have dreamed or even dared. Not even ancient Valyria, where magic was commonplace, could rival the Ulvogin's mystical powers. Thousands of years of study and experimentations in the mystic fields have given the Ulvogin vast reserves of power. Indeed, it is doubtful that any outsider could ever hope attain the levels of esoteric knowledge that they possess. For the Ulvogin, magic is a tool, no different from a shovel or a pickaxe, and so even what others would consider to be the blackest and most unholy magicks are openly utilized. Necromancy The Ulvogin became intimately familiar with this field of magic during their many battles with the Others during the Long Night. Any slain who were not burned would rise up as their thralls, bolstering the forces of the Others. Rather than simply burn their dead before the Others could raise them as wights, the Ulvogin instead did it themselves, allowing them to field their own army of undead. The Children of the Forest considered this field to be among the most terrible forms of magic and practicing it the most grievous sin against nature that one could commit; this was the main reason for the Ulvogin's banishment. Today, they are not limited to simply raising the dead. An Ulvogin sorcerer can use Necromancy to make the flesh rot away from a foe's bones, drain the very life from a man, or even conjure a plague to infect a village. Blood Magic Blood is the key to life, and to master this power is to master life itself. At its most benign, blood magic can be used to cure disease and heal the gravest of injuries, even restoring a man back to life if done quickly enough. The Ulvogin, as with their other arts, have twisted it to serve much fouler purposes as well. With a gesture, an Ulvogin can make the blood boil and burst from the veins of a victim, or create a weapon out of crystalized ichor. A truly skilled practitioner of blood magic can even mold flesh and bone in their hands as though it were clay, turning a subject into a grotesque mockery of its former self. Shadow Manipulation Though the disciples of the Lord of Light may claim that the shadows serve him, all darkness truly belongs to the Void Lord C'rathul and thus true mastery over them is possessed by the Ulvogin, his chosen people. It is in this field that the Ulvogin are perhaps the most skilled; they can do virtually anything with this power, from making a person's own shadow strangle him to death, or meld with ambient darkness to strike from anywhere. It is also considered to be a holy art, for the Lord of the Abyss revels in all that is dark; his priests are among the most proficient masters of this art, unparalleled even amongst their brethren.